Retinopathy treatments

During the first 3 stages of retinopathy, no treatment is needed, unless you have macular edema. Most common retinopathy treatment is laser surgery.

To prevent retinopathy progression, diabetes people should control their levels of blood glucose, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol.

Most used retinopathy treatment is focused laser surgery, scattered laser surgery and if needed Vitreous surgery or Vitrectomy may be suggested.

Laser treatment, can be done as an outpatient procedure. Before laser treatment, eye drops are used to dilate pupils and numb the eye. To prevent discomfort, doctor may also numb the area behind the eye.

During laser treatment the lights in the clinic will be dim and holding a special lens to your eyes. You may see flashes of light during treatment. After treatment, your vision is little blurry for rest of the day due to eye drop and laser treatment. So you might need someone to drive you back.

Laser treatment can be used to treat both macular edema and proliferative diabetic retinopathy. You might require laser surgery more than once to control the leaking fluid. Laser treatment seals leaking vessels to stabilize the vision and prevent any further visual loss.

Instead of focus the laser light on a single spot, hundreds and thousands of small lasers that burns away and shrinks the fragile abnormal blood vessels. You might lose some of your side vision after this treatment just to save rest of your sight. Laser surgery may also slightly reduce your color and night vision.

Laser treatments do not improve the vision; it only stabilizes it and avoid further lose of vision.

Vitreous surgery is a microsurgery developed in recent years which now enables eye surgeons to treat patients with diseases of the retina.

The vitreous is a watery gel that fills the eye from the lens back to the retina. Normal vitreous is totally clear and allows the light from the front of the eye to reach the retina undisturbed. Retina is a thin layer of nerve tissue that lines the back of the eye. It receives light signals from the eye and sends them to the brain so that vision can occur. The small important area of the retina called the macula, which is responsible for the fine visual tasks (ie. reading vision). The rest of the retina provides peripheral (side view) and night vision.

When the vitreous gel becomes mixed with blood or scar tissue most commonly caused by retinopathy, the incoming light can not reach the retina and vision is partially decreased.

Vitrectomy is done under local anesthesia means know the thinks happen around you during the operation. This surgery is done only in selected patients who have developed a very advanced stage of diabetic retinopathy, not only do they have a risk of bleeding but also carry significant risk of retinal detachment.

During vitreous surgery done under a microscope, tiny instruments are introduced into the eye through openings made to the side of the clear cornea. The instruments pass behind the iris and the lens into the vitreous cavity.

The cloudy vitreous is removed and replaced with a special clear saline solution. In addition, scar tissue is cut and removed in an attempt to relieve the pulling on the retina.